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[Büge]

Let's look at Red Sonja. She isn't in her battle bikini to show off her musculature, the way that Conan the Barbarian's battle speedo does.

Interestingly, Red Sonja's most popular appearance style is just the latest in her history.

[Classic]

That is interesting!
I am not sure how it relates to this horse-hide drum that I'm beating, though...

[patito]

I was bringing in the muscular amazon because i wanted to tie it up to kamitami's response with the muscular dudes and how they can also be found sexually attractive and that people are getting offended for really weird reasons. In fact they're probably getting offended just for the sake of being offended and that's no way to live.

[Classic]

In fact they're probably getting offended just for the sake of being offended and that's no way to live.

When you're assuming someone is getting offended for the sake of being offended, you're being an asshole.
Especially if you're talking about Nutt being upset by Kamitani's joke. Maybe it's unfair to Kamitani to assume that he's the sort of person that uses "gay" as a pejorative, but again, context and context. While I'm 100% willing to give Kamitani the benefit of the doubt here, I'm basically not affected by homophobia. None of my current personal friends are ("out") gay men and being called gay as a pejorative hasn't bothered me since high school when I actively supported the LGBT tolerance group there. But I'm definitely not going to begrudge Nutt for being touchy about the subject. Just like I'm touchy when people try to use "feminist" or "atheist" as a pejorative.

[Bal]

Kamitani's designs in this game, from the logo to the characters to the monsters, are so stylized as to be almost unrecognizable. The Amazon's "backbreaker pose" is the least anatomically disturbing thing about that image. Each character seems to have a feature that Kamitani has picked to make the focus of his design, and then he exaggerates it to the point of caricature. In the case of the Amazon it's her gigantic muscular physique, in particular her legs. For the warrior it seems to be his gear, as you can barely make out that he's even in there. The Dwarf seems to be similar to the amazon, but flipped, in that he to is a brick shithouse, but top heavy instead. And then obviously the Sorceress has enormous breasts, but she also seems to be wearing an evening gown, and she acts rather haughty, so I can see where he's going with that too. I'm not sure what the Elf is really showing off, maybe just speed and agility with her small frame.

The point being, the entire cast are impossible freaks.

[Ted Belmont]

...Except the women(with the exception of Elf) are impossibly sexualized freaks. We've been over this already.

[Bal]

I would argue that that claim only really applies to the Sorceress. Honestly, even she is so over the top I find it hard to take seriously.

[Ted Belmont]

Nah, that Amazon is definitely somebody's fetish.

[patito]

Look, I like the elf and the amazon is pretty gross when drawn really closely to her actual design. Could the wizard stand to be a prettier pretty boy, I suppose he could. The dwarf if pretty dwarvy if you're into that.

What I'm saying is that most of the cast can be somebody's fetish and you don't even need to oversexualize them.

[Bal]

Nah, that Amazon is definitely somebody's fetish.

I don't think anything is going to be served by getting in to what is and is not someone's fetish. I know for a fact that every single character, male or female, is someone's specific fetish.

[Ted Belmont]

Look, I like the elf and the amazon is pretty gross when drawn really closely to her actual design. Could the wizard stand to be a prettier pretty boy, I suppose he could. The dwarf if pretty dwarvy if you're into that.

What I'm saying is that most of the cast can be somebody's fetish and you don't even need to oversexualize them.

And yet:

Anyway, I tend to agree with Kayin on this. Dragon's Crown is a niche of a niche, and the overall impact it's going to have on anything is pretty small. That doesn't mean it can't be discussed, or even criticized, but at the end of the day, George Kamitani is going to make games for George Kamitani. And that's okay, because not everything has to appeal to everyone! The games industry definitely needs more representation from women and minorities, but I kind of feel like that's a whole other issue, and the casual sexism/racism we see in mainstream games are more of a symptom of that than anything else.

[Büge]

Anybody remember Naga from Slayers? She was a caricature of busty fantasy sorceresses too.

[Thad]

Let's look at Red Sonja. She isn't in her battle bikini to show off her musculature, the way that Conan the Barbarian's battle speedo does.

Interestingly, Red Sonja's most popular appearance style is just the latest in her history.

Kinda but not really.

As that image alludes, there is a character named Red Sonya who appears in a Howard story from 1934.

Red Sonja is a derivative but distinct character created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor Smith, and first appeared in 1973.  That 1972 drawing is consistent with her first couple of appearances, but she was wearing the chainmail bikini within a matter of months, not years.  So far as I know her appearance has been pretty consistent since.

[Classic]

I was slow on the draw for this one...

The point being, the entire cast are impossible freaks.

You're not wrong with what you're saying but...

We've been over this already.

I'd argue that the Elf is also sexualized in that she's also put into a brokeback pose, though it's an "action shot" and maybe doesn't count this negates, somewhat the creepy male gaze factor I get from it. Obviously a pose being used in an "action shot" does not preclude the image being completely ridiculous. Examining the elf's design though, the points we're meant to find attractive might actually be her almost conservative style of dress and her agility and flexibility. EDIT: And I assume everyone here understands how these are desirable features.

If it's not yet clear, I use whether or not characters are put into the brokeback pose as something of a "Bechdel Test" for just how much the piece is trying to hook me in by my genitals. I'm pretty sure that while there going to be concerns that can legitimately be raised about the characters and story of Dragon's Crown, at least none of the women are going into combat wearing heels like M:OM Samus or Samara, and it's not like Kamitani hasn't also put the fighter into a slight brokeback (the plane of his hips and feet are at more than a right angle from the plane of his shoulders and chest). Like the Bechdel Test, it's an extremely low bar that says very little for the (sleazy) content of whatever it is that's being tested, but it usually means that a (usually female) character is being treated as eye candy and the frequency of it makes me uncomfortable.

amazon is pretty gross when drawn really closely to her actual design

I am extremely disappointed by this opinion.

[Bal]

As I was saying before, regardless of how you take the imagery, I think we can agree that anatomical accuracy is the least of Kamitani's concerns. Even the "broke back pose" on the Amazon seems more like she's just made out of elastic in general.

[Classic]

I agree, at least to some degree, on all of those points.
Of course, deviation from "anatomical accuracy" is not why "broke back poses" are problematic in general or why I'm annoyed at placing the Amazon in them in particular. Those being that making the Amazon seem to be made of elastic runs counter to the more interesting characterization of her being made of muscle and martial prowess and the use of a "broke back pose" offers no additional insight to the personality of a character beyond "is eye candy" by placing the character in a pose crafted specifically to cater to a/the "male gaze".

Actually, don't Dragon's Crown's player characters have heads are closer to the "proper" proportion of head to body (the head represents approximately 1/8th of your overall height)?

[patito]

My point is mostly, and I've said this in like the last two post, and ted seems to have missed the point. You don't need to oversexualise everybody to make them sexually attractive. The sorceress in particular fills the fetish of big boobs and oversexualization and probably some other ones. The amazon is for people who like muscles, the elf appeals to me, the dwarf appeals to other people even. So everybody is a fetish object. Singling out the sorceress is pretty silly when every other character is designed to appeal to one fetish or another.

[Ted Belmont]

Oh no, I didnt miss your point. I just disregarded it, because, like Kayin said, if you're trying to argue that the depictions of the sorceress and the fighter are at all equivalent, you're probably an asshole.

[patito]

Well no, the fighter is pretty boring, I don't know who would play him.

[Büge]

Damsel in Distress: Part 2 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games